


There's a Kid, You Know

by welove1stickyboi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Gen, Oh wait I do, Spoilers for IW, editors tears, im so sorry, people keep telling me that it makes them cry but honestly dont get it myself, spoilers for Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welove1stickyboi/pseuds/welove1stickyboi
Summary: hey. hey u.*shuffles closer**opens jacket*do u want some............................................. Tears





	There's a Kid, You Know

**Author's Note:**

> you ever do that thing where you write something on your phone and then look at it on the laptop and just be disappointed in yourself because  
> s h o r t

There’s a kid, you know.

 

He’s sitting on the scratchy floor, aftertaste of ice cream turning slightly bitter and dry in his mouth. He's been on the edge of his seat and nearly the nubs of his fingernails for three months, waiting for his hero to come back. He fiddles with the rug, curling the edges like Aunt May told him not to.

 

The city is quietly buzzing through the glass of the window. He couldn't see through the window yet. Sometimes they lifted him up, but they never really wanted to stay there for long.

 

He wanted to be up there.

 

Stool rungs, stool, scramble onto the Big Chair, climb up the back - _agh!_

 

He found himself on the floor again.

 

Back to the first thought. Again.

 

_He will come back, right?_

 

Of course he’ll come back. Mr. Stark wasn’t magic, Ben said, but “close enough”. Magic people didn’t die.

 

And then Aunt May is calling from another room and he's scrambling in to squeeze beside her because _Tony Stark_ is on the news and looking battered and tired and eating a cheeseburger but _he's back and he_ knew _it!_

 

Peter Parker is ecstatic, and the world is as sweet as the chocolate chip that had blessed his tongue.

 

***

There's a kid, you know.

 

He's wearing his blue jacket with his favourite Iron Man helmet. He'd worried that the blue was going to look weird but Uncle Ben told him that he was “a model for all things eccentric” and that he looked amazing.

 

Everyone was screaming and running because of the big robots. They were grey, clunky, and the boy didn't really like them that much. Guessing by the running crowd, they didn't like the robots that much either.

 

The safe white lights of the Expo have disappeared, and the area is lit only by the oranges and reds of the _other_ lights. Red was cool - _Iron Man was red!_ \- but this red was different.

 

It felt like he shouldn't be here.

 

He’s lost Uncle Ben. The screaming hurt his ears. He's biting his lip in the suffocating heat inside the shiny red-gold plastic.

 

 _Think what Iron Man would do,_ he tells himself, only a little scared. It was okay to be a little scared.

 

 _Thud._ One of the clunky robots. Bad guy sighted.

 

_( Is that a Hammer drone? Ben thinks frantically as he's pushing through the screaming crowd to get to his kid.)_

 

He slowly raises a gloved hand, palms sweaty. He imagines power thrumming through his arm, pictures the high-pitched whine, and takes the shot.

 

The chunky metal figure is destroyed in a blast of light. He stares at his gloved fingertips with wide eyes. A hand claps down on his shoulder.

 

“Good job, kid,” says Iron Man.

 

_Iron Man._

 

Iron Man takes off.

 

Peter Parker is awed, and, as Ben throws him over his shoulder and _sprints,_ the world feels as though it's made of crystal cobwebs and the purest oxygen.

 

***

There’s a kid, you know.

 

He's sitting on the windowsill of his bedroom, picking at flakes of paint that yield easily at his ceaseless fingernails. They crumble in his grasp. His hair is a mess, and he's trying to breathe deeply as his lungs can take, eyes wide as possible to absorb all the light he can.

 

_I'm not really this weak, am I?_

 

It was just a locker. A dark, tiny, enclosed, suffocating, terrifying locker, but a locker nonetheless. He can still feel the ache in his back from where he had to stay hunched over for who knows how long.

 

And he can still replicate, far too well, the feeling of lightning that pierced his stomach every time his knees knocked the thin metal.

 

And he can recall, with vivid and unwanted clarity, the horribly certain feeling that he was going to run out of air.

 

The boy exhales sharply, kicking his feet up into the cool night air and gripping the sill tighter. It was fine now. It was fine.

 

Peter Parker is breathing, and the world still smells like harsh lemon disinfectant.

 

***

There's a kid, you know.

 

He's cornered in a back alley,  decked in a royal blue and red, soft fabric bright against the dark and dinginess of the leaning buildings. He feels as though the towering flats are conspiring with each other, betting on who will win this face-off. His spider-sense almost _burns_ in the base of his skull, making it hard to concentrate. It’s trying to warn him of something dangerous, but he can’t tell what it is.

 

He glances up at the gloomy houses again. They probably weren't betting on _him_ winning, then. He takes a subconscious step backwards.

 

Glass pierces into his heel, and he bites down on a yelp.

The material had been worn to threads, he'd noticed a few days earlier, but he figured it'd hold out for a bit longer. ( _Idiot. Spider-sense isn’t going to baby you about everything.)_ The man never hears the yelp. He can’t show fear.

 

A glint of metal is spotted by the teen in the gloom of the backstreet. The spider-sense increases in intensity, wrapping a smoldering black hand around the back of his head. Warning signs meant nothing without knowing what they were for, and -

 

_Has that guy got a gun?_

 

 _Crack._ The wall next to his face has a new piercing, with a freaking _bullet_ as the earring. The teen actually does yelp this time, springing into the air, realizing halfway up that he can’t land on his newly glass-embedded foot, and sticks to a wall instead.

 

“ _Clink, kra-ching,”_ sings the cold, gleaming device that wants nothing more than to kill him.

 

The guy was going to fire again.

 

Peter Parker is running on adrenaline and determination, and the world tastes like black coffee - and the copper tang of blood.

 

***

 

There's a _kid,_ you know.

 

He's not going to go out with a majestic fight against a supervillain. He doesn't get a movie ending, the ones with flames and storms and an actual _difference_ hanging in the balance. No. He's going to die alone, in the dark.

 

Spiders were okay with the dark. Spiders dislike lemons for their acidity. Spiders can lift 1-120 times their own weight.

 

(He knows this. Citrus just doesn't _appeal_ to him anymore.)

 

Point is, hypothetically, lifting this… _entire building_ should be no problem. The _problem_ with that is the “hypothetically”.

 

He scrabbles to find purchase in this, this stone that's pinning him down. Fingers brush and bruise and he gasps as they graze across the uncaring cement. The grey fizzing in them lingers as he snatches them away.

 

A red drop falls like a liquid ruby to the floor, splattering on the broken concrete and beams and dust. It's mixing with something seemingly darker pooling directly under him, creating a swirling, seeping mixture, like when you pour the smallest amount of milk into tea. He doesn't want to think about what the darker mixture is. He doesn't want to _think_.

 

_Will it hurt?_

 

See, this is why.

 

The rubble is pressing in on him. A sharp corner digs into his leg, and he can feel warmth bubbling up and dripping down his shins.

 

He's suffocating. Each breath is hot and thick and _not enough_ and the smell of cement fills his nostrils - _he cannot breathe._

 

A black-purple cloud presses in the corners of his eyes, making his mind feel like someone has packed it uncomfortably tight with wads of cotton. He's lightheaded, and he tries to drag in some gasps, but the thin, dust-choked air won't _work_.

 

No. No, no, _no,_ come _on_ he could still _do_ this. The Vulture was still on the loose. Mr. Stark -

 

He blinks back the stinging, reminding his himself that this is not the time.

 

\- shouldn't have to deal with his failure.

 

The boy shifts. He wriggles his arms up to his chest. And with this bare leverage against the crushing cement, he begins to _push._

 

His muscles are made of pure fire, raging and spitting at his insides, and he gasps at the pain. Warm copper floods his tongue. But he getting there, he's getting up, he's getting _better_ and although his body is screaming for him to _stop, it's all wrong, it feels_ wrong, he grits his teeth and pushes harder.

 

A few minutes later he can breathe again. He does so quickly, hoping to put out the flames that reside in his muscles. His leg has stopped bleeding already, but still stings. _C’mon, in, out, in, out, the world doesn't have time for you to panic._

 

_Be better._

 

Peter Parker is not okay, but he'll deal with it… later. The world smells of burning, and he's the one holding the match.

 

***

There was a hero, you know.

 

Nobody actually knew his name. They say he was once an Avenger, for a short while. They say he went by Spider-Man. Webbing (webbing? Literal spider? What?) through Queens, helping old ladies across the street, saving cats.

 

Nobody actually knew what he _really_ did. Fighting the darkness with a flame that burned him even as it turned his enemy to dust, and trying to put embers back together with only a thin suit protecting his hands. What he really fought the hardest was done in the blackest of times, the blackest of places, with no terrible quality camera to make something out of it.

 

Nobody actually knew where he _went_. They say he went off somewhere in space to fight off some big baddie. Wow. Those that returned were worse for wear. You could see the battle wounds dug deeper than skin, and with many of their number missing, it didn't take a genius to guess why. Spider-Man just happened to be one of those that never came back.

 

_What happened to him?_

 

Tony Stark could tell you. But he won't. You think you could replace _him_? No.

 

He was made of more iron than the damn suit, heart of gold and as soft as the purest of it. He was made of chocolate chip ice cream and cool evenings and more things than you could ever imagine, hastily tied together with a loop of webbing. He was _better_.

 

There was probably more than that.

 

There was definitely more than that.

 

He was a spark that ignited the flames, creating warmth and love. He was the dust sparkling in the dawn of a forgotten planet. He was the adrenaline in nearly losing a fight, and the cool rush in the throat when the fight was won just by a thread. Except that it wasn't quite,  not this time.

 

Peter Parker is dead, and the world tastes of ash.

**Author's Note:**

> my brain: write for a fandom you're not in, know nothing about, and haven't watched the movies for
> 
> me: why
> 
> my brain: you gotta
> 
> Edited by a (patient, sassy) lovely friend of mine


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